Fleas Biting: U.S. Embassy Statement on Vietnam Adoption

Monday, November 05, 2007

U.S. Embassy Statement on Vietnam Adoption

The U.S Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam has issued a statement noting that it and the USCIS in Ho Chi Minh City have seen an increase in irregularities in orphan petitions and visa applications that has resulted in an increase in the issuance of Notices of Intent to Deny visas. The Embassy believes that the number of irregularities it witnesses “strongly indicates that the adoption process in Vietnam still lacks sufficient oversight and regulation.” “Child finders” and inadequate regulation of adoption fees are cited as chief concerns.

The Embassy urges prospective parents to be “extremely diligent” in reviewing an adoption agency qualifications before selecting an agency. Says the Embassy:

Unfortunately, as news stories and blogs often reveal, the glowing report of an
adoptive parent who successfully ‘brought home’ a child cannot be taken as
evidence that the adoption was ethical or fully legal.

The Embassy urges the Government of Vietnam to continue efforts to become a party to the Hague Convention. The Memorandum of Understanding that Vietnam and the United States signed in 2005 was “designed to increase transparency and reduce corruption, and came after a period when adoptions had been suspended in Vietnam because of significant problems involving corruption and ‘Baby buying.’”

The Embassy encourages Vietnam’s Department of International Adoptions (DIA) to work with provincial authorities in Vietnam to improve the integrity of the Vietnamese adoption system. Although there may be legitimate concerns about DIA’s authority, the Embassy states it has seen little remedial action to address these problems, including little, if any, action to identify and prosecute those responsible for (1) fraudulently documenting the abandonment of children, (2)offering monetary inducements to families for relinquishing children, and (3) offering children for international adoption without the consent of the birth parents.

The Embassy also urges the Governement of Vietnam to pass comprehensive legislation that protects all parties and meets the standards of the Hague Convention.

Usha

Announcement Regarding Adoption in Vietnam, U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, November, 2007

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Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.

Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.

For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.

Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.

Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.

It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.

Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.

Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.

Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.

We have been left to ask the questions:

1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?

2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?

This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.

Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.

If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.

To find out more about Desiree's family's adoption follow the following link. NPR's" Adoption in America Series: An Adoption Gone Wrong, July 24, 2007

Usha: When I adopted from India not that many years ago, I was ignorant about the adoption landscape.

I believed the adoption myth that adoption agencies are basically trustworthy and that with all the hoops adopters must jump through, there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure that adoptions are ethical.

After adopting, I began participating in the adoption community.

My eyes were opened by the racist attitudes and beliefs I observed in fellow adopters from India. I couldn't believe the dim view I saw many take of my children's country of birth, my own country of origin.

Where were the checks to ensure that children were adopted into non-racist families? Later, my eyes opened wider when I learned about scndal after scandal with the recurrent themes of: getting children "out," agencies willing to look the other way, laws that are good on paper, but that are not enforced and individuals advocating for reform simplistically painted as evil and "anti-adoption."

First, I thought adoption corruption was primarily specific to India. It didn't take long, however, to become aware of how pervasive adoption corruption is.

With that knowledge came a sense of obligation that as a participant in the system: no matter how unwitting, I owe it to my children to advocate for reform

Favorite Corruption Quotes

"It takes a certain level of arrogance, greed, and defiance to deal children for money"

--indirect quote attributed (by a reporter) to officials investigating the FOC Samoan case

"Smuggling human beings into the US for money is one of the most egreigious exploitations of our nation's immigration system."

--an official at the press conference announcing the indictment of FOC on Samoan adoption related charges

"What begins as fraudulent rarely can be legitimized."

--the US attorney speaking of the Samoan adoption cases

"We all have an intense need to know. And the strongest human force on Earth is a parent searching for their disappeared child."

--Eric Stover, director, Berkeley's Human Rights Center, speaking on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, 02/15/07

“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”

--Thucydides, Ancient Greek historians and author, 460-404bc

“The more I learn, the more race, culture, and class stand out as the key issues behind ethical problems in adoption, domestically and internationally—the same issues are at play in both"
”

--Tesi Kohlenberg, Adoptive Parent

"Sending" Country Parent and Community Voices

Books by Adult Adoptees

A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee's Search for Her Roots by Katy Robinson
Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison by Deborah Jiang Stein
Fugitive Visions, An Adoptee's Return to Korea by Jane Jeong Trenka
Identical Strangers, A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein
Lucky Girl by Mei-Ling Hopgood
Outer Search, Inner Journey: An Orphan and Adoptee's Quest by Peter Dodds
Outsiders Within, Writing on Transracial Adoption edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin
The Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka
The Unforgotten War: Dust of the Streets by Thomas Park Clement
Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter by Betty Jean Lifton

Monday, November 05, 2007

U.S. Embassy Statement on Vietnam Adoption

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